Ėven

Project Statistics

Sessions: 120

Audio recordings: 154

Video recordings: 195

Annotations: 146

Images: 175

Last update: 2017-6-18

This project documented three highly endangered variants of Ėven: the Lamunkhin dialect spoken in the village of Sebjan-Küöl in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), which is the westernmost Ėven dialect still spoken; the dialect spoken in the village of Topolinoe in Yakutia, which is in an intermediate geographic location, and the dialect spoken in the Bystraja district on Kamchatka, one of the easternmost Ėven dialects. The Lamunkhin dialect, which is currently still being passed on to children, is spoken by approximately 300 people; the dominant language in everyday communication in the village, however, is Sakha (Yakut). In Topolinoe and in the Bystraja district, Ėven is not learnt by children anymore; in each of these communities, only about 200-250 Ėvens, all over 40 years of age, still speak the language. These two communities are shifting to Russian.

Within the project, Luise Zippel completed a Master’s thesis on finiteness in Ėven, and Natalia Aralova is writing a PhD thesis on Ėven vowel harmony.